


Doesn't Deserve the Sunshine

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is supposed to be home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doesn't Deserve the Sunshine

No one is supposed to be home.

No one is supposed to be home but there are footsteps on the stairs and even though her  _head_  knows this, her  _hands_  don’t seem to get the message and they keep moving, lifting Brittany’s shirt higher and higher while her mouth follows the same path. On her knees in between Brittany’s legs, the blond laid out on her bed with her hair everywhere and her Cheerio top somewhere on the floor and her head thrown back with her eyes closed, Santana hears footsteps and she knows no one is supposed to be home, but she can’t get herself to move.

Brittany must not hear anything – Santana only hears the muted footsteps because the third step from the top of the stairs has creaked her entire life – because she only grabs blindly for Santana’s shoulders.

No one is supposed to be home, but the door swings open.

“We saw a car-”

She sits up quickly and her mother’s sentence dies in the middle of the room, halfway between the door and the bed. Brittany pulls a pillow over her bra-clad torso, her mouth hanging open.

When her mother starts swearing in Spanish, Santana is glad that they never actually study when they’re supposed to and that Brittany doesn’t understand anything her mother is saying.

¿ _Cómo pudiste hacerme esta a mí?_

_Desagradecida._

Her mother is screaming in Spanish, pacing the room in large, heavy strides, her gold cross bouncing against her neck and then she hears her father racing up the stairs – probably taking them two at a time – and he’s coming through the door and this everything she didn’t want it to be.

She wanted to sit them down and give them the pros and the cons list she keeps under her bed.

She wanted to explain to them about Brittany; about the way she feels about Brittany and how she likes to compare it to the way her parents feel about each other.

She wanted to be able to have that chance and now it’s gone.

“ _Puta,_ ” her mom screams, pointing at her. When she points and screams it at Brittany, though, it shocks Santana out of whatever stupor she’s fallen into and she turns back to the bed with wide eyes. Brittany is clutching the pillow to her chest and her eyes are even wider and they’re scared and Santana _can’t_.

She can’t let Brittany be yelled at like this, whether or not the blond knows what’s being yelled.

She can’t let Brittany see this, or hear it, or even know about it.

Her mother is still yelling – screaming and shouting and even her father is leaning against the wall by the door glaring and cursing her to eternal damnation – but she moves anyway, lifting herself off her knees and onto the carpeted floor of her room and she grabs Brittany’s uniform top with one hand and Brittany’s arm with the other.

“Santana,” Brittany whispers, her voice raw. She’s got tears in her eyes and her bottom lip is trembling, but Santana doesn’t have time to stop; she can’t stop if she wants to get Brittany out of here.

So she ignores the look on Brittany’s face – the wide-eyed terror, because she’s never seen Mrs. Lopez like this – and she ignores the tears and she does that thing she does with everyone else  _besides_  Brittany and she shuts herself off; doesn’t allow herself to care that Brittany is scared and lost and just wants Santana to explain it all to her.

She drags Brittany down the stairs and tugs her towards the door.

“Santana, Santana,  _stop_ ,” Brittany pleads. She knows her fingers are digging into the muscle on Brittany’s arm; knows she’s leaving marks. “Please, _baby_.”

Her body reacts: she turns towards Brittany and the hand wrapped around Brittany’s arm relaxes and she’s cupping Brittany’s jaw loosely, leaning in from the waist.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. You need to leave.”

Before she can stop herself, she’s opening the door and throwing Brittany’s uniform top out on the front steps and then her white tennis shoes right after that. When she reaches for Brittany, though, the blond steps out of her reach and stares at her like she’s never seen Santana Lopez in her entire life; as if they’re two strangers meeting for the first time and this is their first impression of the other: Santana throwing Brittany out of her house.

 _Puta_ is still echoing in her head.

She slams the door behind Brittany –  _because,_  she tells herself,  _I’m protecting Brittany_  – and holds herself together until she gets to the stairs. That’s when she drops down to the carpeting and sobs, twice – two, long, lung-rattling sobs – into her hands before she stands back up and walks into her room.

Her mother keeps yelling – something about sin and failure and being grounded for the rest of her life and God camp the coming summer – but the only thing echoing in her mind is “ _please, baby”_  over and over again.

\---

Day one without Brittany – locked away in her room while her mother guards the door like she’s some type of prisoner – isn’t as hard as thought it would be and she wonders if this is what a druggie goes through during withdrawal: the calm before the storm.

Outside her room, she can hear her phone going off every couple of minutes and she can only imagine what the texts say.

They’re probably mostly from Brittany, if she’s even talking to Santana anymore after the terrible way Santana got rid of her yesterday, and a few, maybe, from Quinn, especially if Brittany told her what happened. There might be one or two from Puck, even.

“Who’s RuPaul?” her little brother shouts through the door. “She keeps sending you angry messages.”

So Rachel is texting her too, most likely yelling at her about making Brittany cry, but Santana doesn’t answer him and eventually she hears him shuffle down the hall, his voice a mere murmur as he gets farther away.

Her mother only opens the door to give her a plate of food, but then she closes it again just as quickly and doesn’t even come back to give Santana a glass of milk.

Day one without Brittany isn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be, but it can only get worse from here.

\---

On day three she wakes up  in the dark – because the sun went away when Brittany left – and she’s breathing hard, gasping for air she can’t get down her lungs, pawing at the side of the bed where Brittany should be.

Her eyes swing wildly around the room, searching for anything  _Brittany_  but there’s nothing.

Nothing but empty space on the walls where pictures of Brittany used to hang.

\---

Her brother – nine and probably being told what to do by her mother – stops telling her who texts her, but worse, he starts to sit outside her door and read them to her, as if he’s doing her a favor, when really, he’s only making it worse. She can’t really fault him, but it doesn’t make her want to barrel through the locked door and kick him a few times any less.

“RuPaul’s says ‘ _Brittany’s crying again, if you care’._ ”

She throws a pillow against the door but it doesn’t make a sound.

 “This one’s from Quinn,” he narrates. “ _S, you need to tell us what’s going on. It’s been days. Call me._ ”

She hears him running down the hall and then he’s coming back with slower footstep and it sounds like he’s dragging a chair.

“Puck wants you to know that ‘ _This is going to sound weird but if something’s wrong, you can tell me. I can try and fix it, or help’_.”

Santana can feel her eyes start to sting and there’s pressure in the back of her throat.

“Oh,” her brother chuckles, the sound drifting up under the crazy in the door. “Coach Sylvester sent you a message. She said  _‘Unless you’re dying in a Mexican prison, BE. AT. PRACTICE. OR ELSE’_.”

Then he gets quiet, but he’s still pressing buttons and she can hear them. She opens her eyes. Her ceiling coming into focus, and she rolls off her bed, landing on all fours, sliding towards the door. With her forehead pressed against the hardwood and her hands clutching the doorknob, she tries to get as close to the door as possible.

“ _Niño_ ,” she whispers, “did she say anything?”

He stops fidgeting on the other side of the door and for a minute she thinks he’s gone – off and running and telling her mother she brought up ‘the forbidden subject’ – but then there’s tiny little fingers sticking out at the bottom of the door, wriggling.

“All she said was ‘ _I miss you_ ’,” he whispers.

\---

Day seven, Sue Sylvester is down in her living room, yelling at her parents about Nationals and as soon as she stops screaming, Santana can hear Mr. Schuester trying to explain to them about Glee, and Santana appreciates the thought – no matter that Coach is doing this for herself, and not Santana.

She thinks her parents might be coming around, but then she hears Mr. Schuester say “Brittany” and there’s nothing but silence until the door slams, and there’s nothing but silence after that.

\---

There’s a soft knock on her door.

She forgets what day this is. It might be day twelve without Brittany; it might be day thirteen.

“San?” her little brother whispers.

She’s already sitting with her back against the door so she only brings her head forward and drops it back against the wood to signal that she heard him.

“RuPaul texted you, San. She said they’re coming to get you.”

There’s a pause and then she can feel cool air coming through the keyhole.

“She said to be ready,” he whispers.

\---

She doesn’t sleep that night; she hasn’t been sleeping at all, actually, but tonight she stares up at the ceiling instead of closing her eyes and trying to pretend that she’s doing anything.

Santana is waiting and she won’t  _not_  be ready because she fell asleep.

It’s some time after one in the morning when there’s a scraping sound outside of her window, on the side of the house, down on the lawn.

She slides across the floor on her knees, grabbing the windowsill and hoisting herself up a little to look – not too much, because her parents have their neighbors making sure she’s not waving any help signs out the windows.

When she sees what’s making all the noise – the metal on metal sound that’s probably already woken her parents up – her eyes go wide and she slides back down to the floor and then Brittany is climbing through the window, her legs following awkwardly and her elbows and knees sharp pointed angles, tumbling down next to Santana.

She doesn’t turn her head, she doesn’t blink, she doesn’t even breathe.

It could still be a dream.

Brittany reaches for her, but her hand stops and hangs between them. “Santana,” she says softly. “Santana, we have to go now.”

 _Go where_ , Santana wants to ask, but Brittany is already off the floor, grabbing clothes out of drawers and out of the closet and shoving them into Santana’s Cheerios bag; sweeping her arm across the top of the dresser, catching all the loose things: her hairbrush, her deodorant, her jewelry.

She blinks once and Brittany is kneeling in front of her, reaching out again to touch her. “ _Please_ , baby,” she whispers.

She’s down the ladder propped against her window, resting in the bed of Puck’s truck, and tucked into the bucket seat with Brittany’s shoulder pressed against hers by the time she blinks again.

\---

She wakes up on day fourteen and she’s breathing hard, gasping for air she can’t get down her lungs, pawing at the side of the bed where Brittany should be and when her closed fist hits soft skin, her entire body freezes and the air comes back into her lungs so fast it burns on its way down – a burn that, for the first time in fourteen days, soothes instead of stings.

Brittany rolls over and Santana is staring into blue eyes, searching for a way to say she’s sorry, but Brittany shakes her head and smiles and leans a little closer, pressing her forehead to Santana’s.

“I’m sorry I left you there so long,” she whispers against Santana’s mouth.

Santana shakes her head, her skin sliding against Brittany’s. “I should have-”

Brittany dips her head down and kisses Santana chastely and quickly, but it’s enough to send Santana spiraling and her heart ends up in her throat and her hands wrap around Brittany’s waist and she’s pulling the blond closer, because she just needs the contact.

She just needs to know this is real; that this isn’t the dream – the  _nightmare_  – she’s been having lately.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to say past the lump in her throat.

Brittany hums quietly, kissing her forehead, and shifts her hips a little, rolling onto her back, pulling Santana with her so that she’s molded to Brittany’s side, still fitting in all the right places.

The irrational fear that she wouldn’t, that Brittany’s body would fit someone else while they were apart, fades as it burns away and she almost thinks about laughing, but she’s too tired and too warm and Brittany is whispering “Daydream Believer” under her breath.

“ _Cheer up, Sleepy Jean. Oh what can it mean_ ,” she says lightly. “ _For a daydream believer and a homecoming queen_.”

She wraps her arm a little tighter around Brittany’s waist and her eyes slide shut to the sound of Brittany’s voice.

\---

When she wakes up on day fifteen, the sun is in her eyes and there’s blond hair in her mouth and Brittany is squeezing her tight enough so that she needs to take shallow, measured breathes, but something about it feels  _right_.

Brittany is the only reason she should ever be breathless.

The sun in her eyes doesn’t even hurt.


End file.
